


light my heart up, baby, like a matchstick

by bettercrazythanboring



Series: fuck me if you must, then [3]
Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Angst, Comfort Sex, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1296508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettercrazythanboring/pseuds/bettercrazythanboring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Autolarist (n): one who worships themseves. Filipendulous (adj.): held by a single thread. Kosmokrator (n): a theoretical ruler of the world. Dactylion (n): the tip of the middle finger. He keeps a collection of obscurities in his head to be dug out at his convenience and utilized to make life for everyone unfortunate enough to know him as frustrating as possible. All those hundreds of vocabulary hours later, 'tender' is one word he never learned the meaning of.</p><p>Not that he'd ever have a use for it. Come on; he's Ike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	light my heart up, baby, like a matchstick

**Author's Note:**

> [Title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPKG1-3LXBs)

She loses count of the times her fist rises and drops without a single motion in between.

Each time, her eyes land on the recent footprints in the thick carpet, the cracked champagne bottles in the trash, the pink bra carelessly tucked between the leaves of a potted plant next to her. Each time, she asks herself what she's even doing here as her head sags against the smooth wooden frame with a small thud. Each time, a painful sting echoes through her chest when she considers her other options.

Each time, she wipes her cheeks, balls her fingers back up, and swears she's going to knock this time.

* * *

 

Ike flings the door open with extravagant grace seconds after hearing the quiet thump, a silk robe barely covering his pajama-clad ass.

His expression freezes mid-word. " _You_ … are not the pizza guy," he says, a single finger pointing at her.

"Congrats on having eyes," Jade mutters without any of her usual fire.

A lazy smirk spreads across his face. " _Well_ , given how long I've been acquainted with Georgina Daramount, yes, that certainly is an accomplishment worthy of accolades," he says, taking a small bow. "Thank you for recognizing it as such."

"Mm."

He waits for her to call him a dipshit or spin on her heels and stomp away—or demand he organize a walk-a-thon for that religious fish kid, which he is  _so_  not doing—but she only leans against the doorframe, clutches her upper arms with fingers as black-smeared and wet as her cheeks, and doesn't look at him. Then she blinks and her entire face starts glistening in the yellow light of his chandelier. "What, did My Chemical Romance  _finally_  do their part in preventing an apocalypse and break up?" he asks in a thinly veiled attempt to annoy the fire back into her.

She just stares wordlessly into the distance, not even noticing when a strand of hair falls onto her eyelid. Her nostrils tremble and her eyes glass up again, and she doesn't even have to blink this time for the moisture to well up and fall down her alarmingly pale skin. Still she stays silent.

Ike straightens and ignores the sudden nervous thumping in his chest. He can't shake the feeling that she's waiting for something, waiting for  _him_  to say something, and his mind runs through all the trite placating platitudes his nanny taught him when he was seven—because apparently he was supposed to start resembling a human being by then— _anything_  to wipe that unsettling expression off her face, but all he can come up with is a quiet, involuntary " _Jade_."

At that, she finally looks at him, her gaze clear, distant, shamed, and pleading all at once. It sends a chill through his spine. "I didn't know where else to go," she whispers, voice breaking.

He's seen her sob uncontrollably before, over someone's death or a broken bone jutting out of her skin, or maybe a chipped nail—who cares. He's seen her thrash and scream and  _snarl_  until she' exhausted all other ways for her rage to burst out of her, and all that's left is water splashing from her eyes in one last desperate attempt to release the beast within her. He's seen her shake with terror in the corner of a damp brick basement,  _been_  the one to slap her tears away and watch how that headstrong resolve returns to her face. These vacant eyes and a silent, defeated weep… this one's new.

He steps to the side without a second thought and tries to swallow the knot in his throat—brought on by allergies probably—while she steps in and plods to his bed, strides sluggish and eyes fixed to the floor. She nearly falls onto the soft covers when her legs give out, and then twists her hands in her lap, staring at them with a focus both scary and nonexistent.

"You can go back to your porn or caviar, or whatever it is that you do in your spare time," she says, barely a whisper. Bit by bit, she peels the inky nail polish off her fingers and lets it fall to the floor. "I just wanted someone to be near me. That's it."

All the boy does is close his door and not move another muscle.

Has she been in this room before? Jade glances at the ornate dresser and flowing canopy, and embroidered wallpaper, and all these beautiful things; her memory fails her. She knows he moved again not too long ago, but all these rooms started to blur together after the first two months. Honestly, when he spends his time being chained up in Daramount's prison one day and packing his stuff up the very same evening, who has the energy to keep straight which high-ceiling king suite he's had an orgy in and which ones are still waiting for their perverted christenings?

Not her, that's for sure. Although, she reminds herself, that would require her being  _in_  any of his rooms enough to even try memorizing them. No, she's much more familiar with the darkest corners of broom closets and basements. The ones that are hidden and dirty, just like this relationship. Just like her, for being in it.

Another tear falls into her lap.

The sight sends a needle prick through one of his fingertips, a sensation Ike's never felt before. He grimaces, already berating himself for the words, but asks anyway. "What happened, Red?"

A voiceless laugh escapes her; the sound fills him with cold dread. Jade rubs her face and drags veiny fingers through her chaotic hair. "Nothing," she says, a twisted smile coating her faltering voice. "Nothing  _'happened'_."

"Yeah, because you're usually so cheery to begin with," he mutters. "Seriously, you're already here." His fists stuff themselves awkwardly into the pockets of his pajamas and it's only then that he remembers there are no pockets there. "Why not get it out?"

"If you say so," she says, chin puckering. "Everyone just keeps dying around me. We're all immortal and I'll see them again, right? No big deal. It's not like I knew them all that well anyway." She sucks in a breath through the tears and then the words start spilling out. "Four of our friends are  _dead_ , Ike, and three are imprisoned, and my best friend's in the custody of that psycho nurse  _bitch_ , but I can't even bust her out of there, because I got her hurt so badly that she actually  _needs_  the medical attention. I—" Her lips curl inward. "I had a big brother who really loved me and I took it for granted—I took my whole  _family_  for granted—and now he doesn't remember me, and I'll probably never see him or my dad again, and I miss my mom like crazy, and I can't fucking remember if I've  _ever_ slept without nightmares or woken up without feeling dead, and, guess what, my roommate just tried to stab me.  _Again_. Fucking  _again_!"

She grabs fistfuls of her hair and drags, abdomen twitching. Ike steps toward her before he can think better of himself.

"This is like the fifteenth fucking time," she continues, shaking and speaking through her teeth, "and I can't change rooms, because I'm not 'special' or whatever and they don't  _care_  if some maid's gonna have to scrape me off my bedsheets in pieces—" her fist tightens in her hair to the point of blinding pain "—but when  _I_  try to stab  _Pamela_ , suddenly murder is  _wrong_  or some shit. And Hunter never crawls out of bed from his stupid freaking dream rendezvous, and the only few other people still left here are busy with each other, and you're the  _only_  person in this entire school that I felt I could go to right now. Do you realize how  _fucked up_  that is, dipshit?"

He finally can't take it anymore and joins her on the bed. Their knees bump into each other and he hesitantly places his hand on top of her shaking one. "Yeah, that...  _does_  sound quite fucked up." He pats it jerkily, looking away. "I mean, intimate support that doesn't involve genitals and complex acrobatic positions is to  _me_  as life is to  _Mars_."

Debatable, unproven, probably no longer viable, but not entirely impossible. (And the fact that, though her last resort, he was on her list of people to go to  _at all_  unravels something within him he'd prefer to stay tangled.)

"I feel so  _alone_." Her head falls to his shoulder in a movement so easy he catches himself wondering whether she even remembers whom she's with; he's spent a lot of time cultivating a persona that accepts zero saltwater on his silk shirts. "I'm so lost," she whispers. "I don't think I can take this anymore. Any of it. I just…" Her eyes close and she trembles, and he feels warm liquid fall onto his half-exposed chest beneath the robe. "I don't know what to  _do_. It's too much, all of this. Everything." Her fingers grip his knee. "I want it to stop. I want things to be  _okay_ , even if it's just an illusion. I can't take feeling like this anymore. I just can't." The word should sounds threatening, dangerous, like she's about to explode and take everyone else down with her, but instead they just come out broken to his ears. "I know this isn't what we do, but," she whispers through sniffs, "I really don't want to be alone tonight, Ike. Please,  _please_  don't kick me out."

He should, he thinks as her palm turns up below his and she intertwines their fingers. He should unceremoniously dump her out the door like a puppy that came to play outside its visiting hours. Just forget that she—this gun-toting emo chick who went head to head with two-legged Ukrainian mob and saved his ass on more than one occasion—is capable of having an expression that ghostly. ("Bare" and "raw" are other descriptors that come to mind.) That's what should happen.

Instead, he squeezes her palm with one hand and strokes the back of her head in small circles with the other. "I'm not going to kick you out," he says, willing that unsteadiness out of his arms. "But I won't have you moping around here either," he declares. "You have a conundrum?  _Fix_  it."

"What?" Jade draws back to look him in the eye, the eyelashes of her right eye stuck to each other in places. " _How?_  Don't you think that if I could have a normal, happy life, I'd've  _done_  that already?"

He swipes a tear away with his thumb and immediately removes his hand from her face. "Yeah,  _sure_ , but that's not what I was referring to. Your problem is… You've reached your breaking point." He shrugs. "No way around it."

"And  _again_  I ask: how?" She softly bites her lip and wipes her nose with the back of her palm. "How do I not feel like this? Right now, I wanna claw myself open and see what comes pouring out, and I'm  _not_  doing that.  _Or_  running a marathon, or any of that stress relief crap self-help books shove down your throat." The girl takes a steadying breath. "But I need to do  _something_. I can't just be… like  _this_."

"Well, you've come to the right place; I'm  _fairly_  certain I can help with that." He takes her by the shoulder and stares right into her eyes. His voice drops to a terrifying solemnity for an instant. "Do you trust me, Red?"

"Not even a little bit," she replies without missing a beat. But when he smirks, satisfied with her response, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, she begins to wonder if that's a lie.

"Well, you're gonna have to for tonight," Ike says and kisses her like he never has before—deeply, thoroughly, without an ounce of haste.

Her arm winds around his neck to pull him closer, and he lays a palm on her breast, and he'll claim later that he just wanted to cop a feel, but what he's truly after is that erratic beat of her heart, steadying bit by bit under his fingers as his lips convince her he has nowhere else to be. Minutes pass and her thundering pulse barely makes itself known by the time he lays her down on the sheets and travels down her neck, unbuttoning her blouse just before his teeth graze the soft flesh beneath, savoring the texture.

He has to pull back and swallow roughly to remind himself where he is.  _Who_  he is.

"You're gonna have to," he repeats huskily, "otherwise I  _will_  kick you out; that's the deal." He kisses her again, slowly, maddeningly, and runs a hand down her side when she arches into him. Ike's lips find her earlobe and gently pull on it. His hot breath aggravates her nerve endings when he whispers against ear in a half-kiss, "Tell me, Red… do you trust me?"

This time, phrased this way—with his hands on her, evoking memories of heat and desire that she's never stopped craving since that first taste so long ago—it's barely a question. "Yes," she breathes and pulls him back to her mouth, reaching for the zipper before realizing his bottoms don't have one. But it hardly matters; he guides her hand away, murmuring between kisses.

" _Uh-uh…_ We're doing this my way…" He pulls on her lower lip while she pulls his robe off and leaves him topless. "I'm not half-assing this just to have you meandering back here in a week. No quick and dirty; I'm talking bliss of solar system proportions." He nibbles his way down to the crevice between her supple breasts and runs his tongue along where they give way to the lace of her bra, but doesn't bother to loosen the undergarment. "You just… lay back…" He leaves a trail of kisses down her abdomen and tugs the side zipper of her skirt open. "...and  _enjoy_."

Ike hooks a finger beneath the soft cotton next to a collection of freckles below her navel and palms her. The pressure's light but stern, and she squirms beneath him. "Reap the benefits of my wealth of experience in these matters." He kisses her once more, delights in feeling the redhead grow less tense and shaky by the second. "And, ideally," he adds against her mouth, "like, breathe and close your eyes, and listen to pretend waterfalls, and forget everything in the entire world that isn't our bodies meshing together to create some  _sweet_ , sweet lovin'—" she smiles at that "—but those specifics are  _really_  up to you."

He withdraws just slightly, gaze roaming over her flushed cheeks and red lips, and eyes now glistening with something other than despair.

"I also have an array of substances to take the edge off  _artificially_." Which he could probably use himself right about now. "Want some?"

Does she? "No," she says after a moment. "I'm a bit curious, honestly—about how good you really are." She runs her hands through her hair and spreads her legs just a smidge. "We've been together, what, a hundred times now? And you keep boasting about your prowess or whatever and I have to listen to it, but... then I never seem to get your actual  _best_. Not the way you talk about it, anyway," she taunts. "Nah, Blondie, I wanna see this.  _Feel_  every bit of it."

"Well, then settle in, 'cause you're about to find out what true pleasure is." He watches as she wiggles out of her skirt, runs his lips along the inside of her thigh. "If only to save my wounded pride that still  _somehow_  recalls you screaming behind the apple tree last week. Vividly."

Jade's arms stretch long behind her head as she settles deeper into his pillows. "I'd answer that, but I'm too busy listening to waterfalls that don't exist."

"Atta girl," he says low enough for her to miss and withdraws to his knees to get a better look at her. Bare, smooth thighs rest half-raised on either side of him, fiery locks spill disheveled on his bed, and the half-undone blouse flutters in the wind from his open window, exposing her rising and deflating chest in a way that makes his mouth water.

It's just lust, he tells himself over and over as his lips travel over her abdomen.

He was bored before she came over anyway, he tells himself; he's taking advantage of a vulnerable girl's judgment, he tells himself; it's a lot more convenient for him if she's not stuck in a perpetual mopefest and bringing him along for the ride, he tells himself. Doing whatever he wants to a girl is one of his favorite pastimes, he reminds himself. And amid all that silent telling and convincing, he catches a glimpse of her pink, parted lips and half-lidded eyes, and something clenches inside him at how peaceful she looks right just then. Comparatively.

What a difference ten minutes can make.

Fingers not faltering at all—not even remotely—he grips her hips and leans down. "One more rule," Ike says, his unsteady breath ghosting over her damp pelvis an inch away. Her back curves when she pushes herself into the mattress,  _closer_. "We never mention this again. It  _never_  happened."

Undecided on whom the remark was truly addressed to—and not entirely sure he wants to find out—he pushes it all out of mind and presses his lips flush against her, teasing, tasting,  _igniting_  until there's no humanly way her thoughts could retain any coherency whatsoever.

* * *

 

She wakes in stages, drifting in and out of slumber for what could have been hours. It must have been the fifth time of rolling over from one side to the other in a half-conscious haze when she realizes the sunlight's warming her skin from high in the sky and the bed beside her is vacant. It's also the moment the contents of her dreams come back to her—fluffy, light, senseless, and nothing but serene.

Jade drags a hand through the tufts of her mane and relaxes in the sheets, eyes searching for her partner. He waltzes in from the adjoining room seconds later, attention glued to his book and strides heavy with cockiness. His hair's escaped gel so far and he hums a cheerful tune while getting comfortable on the couch.

It takes him a full minute to notice her. "Oh, good; you're up," he drawls. "I would've had you delivered back to your room, but Gribbsie throws around words like 'ungrateful' and 'lunatic' when I make such requests." He manages to eyeroll without granting her a single glance. "Well, that and you were passed out so hard we nearly had to debate whether to carry you over to the morgue." He flips a page. "I trust you had a good night's sleep, then?"

Miles better than she's had in years. She can suddenly grasp the simple concept that "rest" isn't just a made-up word with no meaning again. "It was okay, I guess," she says with a shrug; her gaze drifts to the window once again. "How long was I out?"

"Well, to be perfectly  _fair_ , I'm not actually sure when you fell asleep; you were pretty tranquil for a while there at the end, remember?" He smirks and stares at her, waiting for a blush that never comes; she just sits up with a small smile. Moments later, his mocking grin disappears and his eyes turn away, back to the book, as uneasy chills spread through him. His voice hardens. "But I'd bank on fifteen hours at  _least_." During which he spent half an hour digging through his porn collection for the dirtiest, grossest pieces he owned, and jerked off three separate times in the bathroom just to purge the memories of her soft moans and thick breathing from his system. He hasn't succeeded yet. "So, now that I've been a gracious host and not dumped buckets of cold water on you about eight hours ago, you can skidaddle and otherwise evacuate my quarters now."

She pauses in the middle of stretching her warm, limber muscles. "Uh… thanks?"

His mouth tightens. "I mean, it was a good fuck and everything, but I have things to do, people to screw over." He swings one leg over his knee and reaches for a notepad. "You're lucky there was no class today; skipping's practically a felony here."

"Right," she mutters and gets out of bed. "Hey, uh, thanks." Thus the search for her clothing begins.

Ike's stomach clenches; he continues writing down notes. "For  _what_?" There's a warning in his voice.

"I, uh—" She bends down to pick up her skirt. "The… fun fuck," she says as his rules come back to her. "What else? You were right; the mopiness is gone," she adds.

He runs his tongue over his teeth. "Well. You're welcome. I assume you won't be badmouthing my boudoir activities any longer?"

"I never  _did_. But... sure." She buttons up her blouse and starts looking for a mirror to assess the state of her no doubt atrocious make-up. Instead, her eyes land on the haphazardly thrown sheets and pillows on the other end of his couch. "I… thought you slept in the… bed." She gestures vaguely behind her.

He glances up at her from under his eyebrows. "You kick people in your sleep."

"Oh." She straightens her wrinkled uniform and rubs her face to really wake up. "Well, I guess I'll see you around."

"Yep. See ya."

Jade's halfway out the door when she pauses, but doesn't turn back toward him. " _Thank you_ , Isaac." The sincerity in her voice makes his pen miss the loop it was making, but he doesn't acknowledge her in any other way. Resigned, she closes the door behind her, glances at the bra on the potted plant, and sighs contently to herself. One day, she thinks,  _one day_  she'll get used to whatever it is they have. It won't make her unsettled regardless of how close or far the outcome to what she expected from their time together. One day.

On the other side, Ike links his fingers beneath his chin and breathes. Feels the taste of her on his tongue and that awful bittersweet feeling running through his arms. Tries not to think about waking up in the middle of the night with his arm slung around her waist, the scent of her filling the air around him, and her breathing almost lulling him back to sleep, to the point where he had jolted awake from the terror and couldn't fathom being within ten feet of her anymore.

It's never happening again, he swears. He won't let her stay over. Ever.

His foot starts tapping on his own and his fingers fidget with his watch, and seconds later he's racing out of his room with the intention to bang the first female he stumbles upon—and run the other way if it happens to be that inconvenient redhead who's spreading through him like a virus.


End file.
